In Oriental countries where sandals are worn that cover merely the soles of the feet, it was, it is the custom of the host to offer his guest who comes water with which to wash his feet. There is no reason why this simple incident of humble service, or rather this symbolic act of humble service, could not be taken and made an essential condition of salvation by any council that saw fit to make it such. Things just as strange as this have happened; though any thinking man or woman _today_ would deem it essentially foolish. It is an example of how the spirit of a beautiful act could be misrepresented to the people. For if you will look at them again, Jesus' words are very explicit: "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me." But hear Jesus' own comment as given in John: "So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." It is a means to an end and not an end in itself. The spirit that it typifies is essential; but not the act itself. The same could be rightly said of the Lord's Supper. It is an observance that can be made of great value, one very dear and valuable to many people. But it cannot, if Jesus is to be our authority, and if correctly reported, be by any means made a fundamental, an essential of salvation. From the rebuke administered by Jesus to his disciples in a number of cases where they were prone to drag down his meanings by their purely material interpretations, we should be saved from this.